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Friday, December 18, 2009

Ind. Decisions - One case granted transfer today [Updated]

Transfer was granted today in one case:

• Roger Brown v. State of Indiana -- 12S02-0912-CR-560

Unfortunately, "Roger Brown" is a common name and, unlike has been the practice until recently, the only information given in the notice was the Case. No. assigned by the Supreme Court.

As many of you know, the Supreme Court docket entries for some reason do not refer back to the earlier case numbers.

Eight entries turned up when I searched the docket by "Roger Brown."

[Updated 12/19/09] Thanks to those of you who wrote in on this with suggestions:

• Prof. Joel Schumm wrote:

  Based on the Supreme Court number, you can find the Court of Appeals number pretty easily by the county in the cause number (12: Clinton). http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/08210905tac.pdf
  
  Oddly enough, the conviction was affirmed but the State petitioned for transfer, which was granted. (The Appellant also petitioned, but it was denied.)

• Stephen Creason wrote:

  You're right that several Roger Browns show up on a docket search, but only one of them shared the county number "12" and only one bears a court of appeals number opened in late 08 or early to mid 09, which is 12A02-0901-CR-00001 (interestingly, it was the first case opened this year). That docket shows that today Brown's petition was denied and the State's petition granted.

Although these helpful readers have resolved this incident, the facts remain:

• Unneeded effort was required to find the COA opinion.

• Identifying transfers granted only by Supreme Court Case No., as has become the Clerk's Office practice in the past few weeks, is not helpful.

• Also not helpful is having a separate set of Supreme Court docket entries, which do not refer back to the COA number.

• The fact that the current docket is basically not easy to use heightens these problems.

In sum, the Aug. 21, 2009, 10-page, 3-0 Court of Appeals opinion is Roger L. Brown v. State (No. 12A02-0901-CR-1). The ILB summary, such as it was, is here - 8th case.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 18, 2009 05:58 PM
Posted to Indiana Transfer Lists